He slid a booted foot into the stirrup and vaulted into the saddle with easy grace. He leaned over the pommel and looked at Natalie. “I told him that if he seduced you, he’d have me to contend with. I told his parents the same thing.”

She was horrified. She could hardly breathe. “Of all the interfering, presumptuous—”

“You were raised in an orphanage by spinster women, and then you lived with your aunt, who couldn’t even talk about kissing without going into a swoon,” he said, and he didn’t smile. “You knew nothing about men or sex or hormones. Someone had to protect you, and there wasn’t anybody else to do it.”

“You had no right!”

His dark eye slid over her with something like possession. “I had more right than I’ll ever tell you,” he said quietly. “And that’s all I’ll say on the subject.”

He turned the horse, deaf to her fury.

“Mack!” she raged.

He paused and looked at her. “Tell Viv she can have her friend over for supper Saturday night, on the condition that you come, too.”

“I don’t want to come!”

He hesitated for a minute, then turned the horse and came back to her. “You and I will always disagree on some things,” he said. “But we’re closer than you realize. I know you,” he added in a tone that made her knees wobble. “And you know me.”

She couldn’t fight the emotions that made her more confused, more stirred, than she’d ever been before. She looked at him with eyes that betrayed her longing for him.

He drew in a long, slow breath, and his face seemed to lose its rigor. “I won’t apologize for looking out for you.”

“I’m not part of your family, Mack,” she said huskily. “You can tell Viv and Bob and Charles what to do, but you can’t tell me!”

He studied her angry face and smiled gently, in a way that he rarely smiled at anyone. “Oh, I’m not telling, baby,” he replied softly.

“And don’t call me baby, either!”

“All that fire and fury,” he mused, watching her. “What a waste.”

She was so confused that she could hardly think. “I don’t understand you at all today!”

“No,” he agreed, the smile fading. He looked straight into her eyes, unblinking. “You work hard at it, too.”

He turned the horse, and this time he kept riding.

She wanted to throw things. She couldn’t believe that he’d said such things to her, that he’d come so close in the barn that for an instant she’d thought that he meant to kiss her. And not a chaste brush on the cheek, like at Christmas parties under the mistletoe, either. But a kiss like ones she’d seen in movies, where the hero crushed the heroine against the length of his body and put his mouth so hard against hers that she couldn’t breathe at all.

She tried to picture Mack’s hard, beautiful mouth on her lips, and she shivered. It was bad enough remembering how it had been that rainy night that Carl had died, when one thin strap on her nightgown had slid down her arm and…

Oh, no, she told herself firmly. Oh, no, none of that! She wasn’t going to start daydreaming about Mack again. She’d gone down that road once already, and the consequences had been horrible.

She went back into the house to tell Viv the bad news.

“But that’s wonderful!” her friend exclaimed, all smiles instead of tears. “You’ll come, won’t you?”

“He’s trying to manipulate me,” Natalie said irritably. “I won’t let him do that!”

“But if you don’t come, Whit can’t come,” came the miserable reply. “You just have to, Nat, if I’m your friend at all.”

Natalie grumbled, but in the end, she gave in.

Vivian hugged her tight. “I knew you would,” she said happily. “I can hardly wait until Saturday! You’ll like him, and so will Mack. He’s such a sweet guy.”

Natalie hesitated, but if she didn’t tell her friend, Mack certainly would, and less kindly. “Viv, did you know that he got a girl in trouble?”

“Well, yes,” she said. “But it was her fault,” she pointed out. “She chased him and then when they did it, she wouldn’t let him use anything. He told me.”

Natalie blushed for the second time that day, terribly uncomfortable around people who seemed content to speak about the most embarrassing things openly.

“Sorry,” Viv said with a kind smile. “You’re very unworldly, you know.”

“That’s just what your brother said,” Natalie muttered.

Vivian studied her curiously for a long time. “He may not like the idea of Whit, but he likes the idea of your friend Dave Markham even less,” she confided.

“He’s one to criticize my social life, while he runs around with the likes of Glenna the Bimbo. Stop laughing, it isn’t funny!”

Vivian cleared her throat. “Sorry. But she’s really very nice,” she told her friend. “She just likes men.”

“One after the other,” Natalie agreed, “and even simultaneously, from what people say. Your brother is going to catch some god-awful disease and it will be his own fault. Why are you still laughing?”

“You’re jealous,” Vivian said.

“That’ll be the day!” Natalie said harshly. “I’m going home.”

“He’s only gone out with her twice,” her best friend continued, unabashed, “and he didn’t even have lipstick on his shirt when he came home. They just went to a movie together.”

“I’m sure your brother didn’t get to his present age without learning how to get around lipstick stains,” she said belligerently.

“The ladies seem to like him,” Vivian said.

“Until he speaks and ruins his image,” Natalie added. “His idea of diplomacy is a gun and a smile. If Glenna likes him, it’s only because she’s taped his mouth shut!”

Vivian laughed helplessly. “I guess that could be true,” she confessed. “But he is a refreshing change from all the politically correct people who are afraid to open their mouths at all.”

“I suppose so.”

Vivian stood up. “Natalie?”

“What?”

She stared at her friend quietly. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”

Natalie turned quickly toward the door. She wasn’t going to answer. “I really have got to go. I have exams next week, and I’d better hit the books hard. It wouldn’t do to flub my exams and not graduate,” she added.

Vivian wanted to tell Natalie that she had a pretty good idea of what had happened between her and Mack so long ago, but it would embarrass Natalie if she came right out with it. Her friend was so repressed.

“I don’t know what happened,” she lied, “but you have to remember, you were just seventeen. He was twenty-three.”

Natalie turned, her face pale and shocked. “He…told you?”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Vivian said softly and honestly. She hadn’t needed to be told. Her brother and her best friend had given it away themselves without a word. She smiled. “But you walked around in a constant state of misery and wouldn’t come near the place when he was home. He wouldn’t be at home if he knew you were coming over to see me. I figured he’d probably said something really harsh and you’d had a terrible fight.”

Natalie’s face closed up. “The past is best left buried,” she said curtly.

“I’m not prying. I’m just making an observation.”

“I’ll come Saturday night, but only because he won’t let Whit come if I don’t,” Natalie said a little stiffly.

“I’ll never mention it again,” Vivian said, and Natalie knew what she meant. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up something painful.”

“No harm done. I’d long since forgotten.” The lie slid glibly from her tongue, and she smiled one last time at Vivian before she went out the door. Pretending it didn’t matter was the hardest thing she’d done in years.

Chapter Two

Natalie sat in the elementary-school classroom the next morning, bleary-eyed from having been up so late the night before studying for her final exams. It was imperative that she read over her notes in all her classes every night so that when the exam schedule was posted, she’d be ready. She’d barely had time to think, and she didn’t want to. She never wanted to remember again how it had been that night when she was seventeen and Mack had held her in the darkness.

Mrs. Ringgold’s gentle voice, reminding her that it was time to start handwriting practice, brought her to the present. She apologized and organized the class into small groups around the two large class tables. Mrs. Ringgold took one and she the other as they guided the children through the cursive alphabet, taking time to study each effort and offer praise and corrections where they were necessary.

It was during lunch that she met Dave Markham in the line.

“You look smug today,” he said with a smile. He was tall and slender, but not in the same way that Mack was. Dave was an intellectual who liked classical music and literature. He couldn’t ride or rope and he knew next to nothing about agriculture. But he was sweet, and at least he was someone Natalie could date without having to worry about fighting him off after dessert.

“Mrs. Ringgold says I’m doing great in the classroom,” she advised. “Professor Bailey comes to observe me tomorrow. Then, next week, finals.” She made a mock shiver.

“You’ll pass,” he said, smiling. “Everybody’s terrified of exams, but if you read your notes once a day, you won’t have any trouble with them.”

“I wish I could read my notes,” she confided in a low tone. “If Professor Bailey could flunk me on handwriting, I’d already be out on my ear.”

“And you’re teaching children how to write?” Dave asked in mock horror.

She glared at him. “Listen, I can tell people how to do things I can’t do. It’s all a matter of using authority in your voice.”

“You do that pretty well,” he had to admit. “I hear you had a good tutor.”

“What?”

“McKinzey Killain,” he offered.

“Mack,” she corrected. “Nobody calls him McKinzey.”

“Everybody calls him Mr. Killain, except you,” he corrected. “And from what I hear, most people around here try not to call him at all.”

“He’s not so bad,” she said. “He just has a little problem with diplomacy.”

“Yes. He doesn’t know what it is.”

“In his tax bracket, you don’t have to.” She chuckled. “Are you really going to eat liver and onions?” she asked, glancing at his plate and making a face.

“Organ meats are healthy. Lots healthier than that,” he returned, making a face at her taco. “Your stomach will dissolve from jalapeño peppers.”

“My stomach is made of cast iron, thanks.”

“How about a movie Saturday night?” he asked. “That new science fiction movie is on at the Grand.”

“I’d love to…oh, I’m sorry, I can’t,” she corrected, grimacing. “I promised Vivian I’d come to supper that night.”

“Is that a regular thing?” he wanted to know.

“Only when Vivian wants to bring a special man home,” she said with a rueful smile. “Mack says if I don’t come, her boyfriend can’t come.”

He gave her an odd look. “Why?”

She hesitated with her tray, looking for a place to sit. “Why? I don’t know. He just made it a condition. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t show up and he could put Viv off. He doesn’t like the boy at all.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Where did all these people come from?” she asked, curious because there were hardly any seats vacant at the teachers’ table.

“Visiting committee from the board of education. They’re here to study the space problem,” he added amusedly.

“They should be able to see that there isn’t any space, especially now.”

“We’re hoping they may agree to budget an addition for us, so that we can get rid of the trailers we’re presently using for classrooms.”

“I wonder if we’ll get it.”

He shrugged. “Anybody’s guess. Every time they talk about adding to the millage rate, there’s a groundswell of protest from property owners who don’t have children.”

“I remember.”

He found them two seats at the very end of the teachers’ table and they sat down to the meal. She smiled at the visiting committee and spent the rest of her lunch hour discussing the new playground equipment the board of education had already promised them. She was grateful to have something to think about other than Mack Killain.

Natalie’s little house was just on the outskirts of the Killain ranch, and she often complained that her yard was an afterthought. There was so little grass that she could use a Weed Eater for her yard work. One thing she did have was a fenced-in back yard with climbing roses everywhere. She loved to sit on the tiny patio and watch birds come and go at the small bird feeders hanging from every limb of her one tree—a tall cottonwood. Beyond her boundary, she could catch occasional glimpses of the red-coated Red Angus purebred cattle the Killains raised. The view outside was wonderful.

The view inside was another story. The kitchen had a stove and a refrigerator and a sink, not much else. The living-room-dining-room combination had a sofa and an easy chair—both second-hand—and a used Persian rug with holes. The bedroom had a single bed and a dresser, an old armchair and a straight chair. The porches were small and needed general repair. As homes went, it was hardly the American dream. But to Natalie, whose life had been spent in an orphanage, it was luxury to have her own space. Until her junior year, when she moved into her aunt’s house to become a companion/nurse/housekeeper for the two years until her aunt died suddenly, she’d never been by herself much.

She had one framed portrait of her parents and another of Vivian and Mack and Bob and Charles—a group shot of the four Killains that she’d taken herself at a barbecue Vivian had invited her to on the ranch. She picked up the picture frame and stared hard at the tallest man in the group. He was glaring at the camera, and she recalled amusedly that he’d been so busy giving her instructions on how to take the picture that she’d caught him with his mouth open.

He was like that everywhere. He knew how to do a lot of things very well, and he wasn’t shy with his advice. He’d walked right into the kitchen of a restaurant one memorable day and taught the haughty French chef how to make a proper barbecue sauce. Fortunately, the two of them had gone into the back alley before anything got broken.

She put the picture down and went to make herself a sandwich. Mack said she didn’t eat right, and she had to agree. She could cook, but it seemed such a waste of time to go to all that trouble just for herself. Besides, she was usually so tired when she got home from her student teaching that she didn’t have the energy to prepare a meal.

Ham, lettuce, cheese and mayonnaise on bread. All the essentials, she thought. She approved her latest effort before she ate it. Not bad for a single woman.

She turned on the small color television the Killains had given her last Christmas—a luxury she’d protested, for all the good it did her. The news was on, and as usual, it was all bad. She turned on an afternoon cartoon show instead. Marvin the Martian was much better company than anything going on in Washington, D.C.

When she finished her sandwich, she kicked off her shoes and curled up on the sofa with a cup of black coffee. There was nothing like having a real home, she thought, smiling as her eyes danced around the room. And today was Friday. She’d traded days with another checkout girl, so she had Friday and Saturday off from the grocery store she worked at part-time. The market was open on Sunday, but with a skeleton crew, and Natalie wasn’t scheduled for that day, either. It would be a dream of a weekend if she didn’t have to dress up and go over to the Killains’ for supper the following night. She hoped Vivian wasn’t serious about the young man she’d invited over. When Mack didn’t approve of people, they didn’t usually come back.

Natalie only had one good dress, a black crepe one with spaghetti straps, that fell in a straight line to her ankles. There was a lacy shawl she’d bought to go with it, and a plain little pair of sling-back pumps for her small feet. She used more makeup than usual and grimaced at her reflection. She still didn’t look her age. She could have passed for eighteen.

She got into her small used car and drove to the Killain ranch, approving the new paint job Mack’s men had given the fences around the sprawling Victorian home with its exquisite gingerbread woodwork and latticed porches. It could have slept ten visitors comfortably even before Mack added another wing to accommodate his young brothers’ desire for privacy. There was a matching garage out back where Mack kept his Lincoln and the big double-cabbed Dodge Ram truck he used on the ranch. There was a modern barn where the tractors and combine and other ranch equipment were kept, and an even bigger stable where Mack lodged his prize bulls. A separate stable housed the saddle horses. There was a tennis court, which was rarely used, and an Olympic-size indoor swimming pool and conservatory. The conservatory was Natalie’s favorite place when she visited. Mack grew many species of orchids there, and Natalie loved them as much as he did.

She expected Vivian to meet her at the foot of the steps, but Mack came himself. He was wearing a dark suit and he looked elegant and perturbed with his hands deep in his pockets as he waited for her to mount the staircase.

“Don’t you have another dress?” he asked irritably. “Every time you come over here, you wear that one.”

She lifted her chin haughtily. “I work six days a week to put myself through college, pay for gas and utilities and groceries. What’s left over wouldn’t buy a new piece of material for a mouse suit.”

“Excuses, excuses,” he murmured. His eyes narrowed on the low cleavage. “And I still don’t like that neckline,” he said shortly. “It shows too much of your breasts.”

She threw up both hands, almost flinging her small evening bag against the ceiling. “Listen, what’s this hang-up you have about my breasts lately?” she demanded.

He was frowning as he stared at her bodice. “You’re flaunting them.”

“I am not!”

“It’s all right to do it around me,” he continued flatly, “but I don’t want Vivian’s sex maniac boyfriend to start drooling over you at my supper table.”

“I don’t attract that sort of attention,” she muttered.

“With a body like that, you’d attract attention from a dead man,” he said shortly. “Just looking at you makes me ache.”

She didn’t have a comeback. He’d taken the sense right out of her head with that typically blunt remark.

“No sassy reply?” he taunted.

Her eyes ran over him in the becoming suit. “You don’t look like a man with an ache.”

“How would you know?” he asked. “You don’t even understand what an ache is.”

She frowned. “You’re very difficult to understand.”

“It wouldn’t take an experienced woman five seconds to know what I meant,” he told her. “You’re not only repressed, you’re blind.”

Both eyebrows lifted. “I beg your pardon?”

He let out an angry breath. “Oh, hell, forget it.” He turned on his heel. “Are you coming in or not?”

“You’re testy as all get out tonight,” she murmured dryly, following him. “What’s wrong with you? Can’t Glenna get rid of that…ache?”

He stopped and she cannoned into his back, almost tripping in the process. He spun around and caught her by the waist, jerking her right against him. He held her there, and one lean hand went to the small of her back and ground her hips deliberately into his.

He held her gaze while his body tautened and swelled blatantly against her stomach. “Glenna can’t get rid of it because she doesn’t cause it,” he said with undeniable mockery.

“McKinzey Donald Killain!” she gasped, outraged.

“Are you shocked?” he asked quietly.

She tried to move back, but his hand contracted and he groaned sharply, so she stood very still in the sensual embrace.

“Does it hurt you?” she whispered huskily.

His breathing was ragged. “When you move,” he agreed, a ripple running through his powerful frame.

She stared at him curiously, her body relaxing into the hard curve of him as both his hands went to her hips and held her there very gently.

He returned her quiet stare with his good eye narrowed, intent, searching her face. “I’ve never let you feel that before,” he said huskily.

She was fascinated, not only with the intimacy of their position, but also with the strange sense of belonging it gave her to know that she could arouse him so easily. It didn’t embarrass her, really. She felt possessive about him. She always had.

“Do you have this effect on Markham?” he asked, and he didn’t smile.

“Dave is my friend,” she replied. “It would never occur to him to hold me…like this.”

“Would you let him, if he wanted to?”

She thought about that for a few seconds and she frowned again, worried. “Well, no,” she confessed reluctantly.

“Why not?”

Her eyes searched his good one. “It would be…repulsive with him.”

She felt his heartbeat skip. “Would it?” he asked. “Why?”

“It just would.”

His lean hands spread blatantly over her hips and drew her completely against him. He shivered a little at the pleasure it sent careening through his body. His teeth ground together, and he closed his eyes as he bent to rest his forehead against hers.

Natalie felt her breasts go hard at the tips. Her arms were under his now, her hands flat against the rough fabric of his jacket. Her small evening bag lay somewhere on the wooden floor of the porch, completely forgotten. She felt, saw, heard nothing except Mack. Her whole body pulsated with delight at the feel of him so close to her. She could feel his minty breath on her lips while the sounds of the night dimmed to insignificance in her ears.

“Natalie,” he whispered huskily, and his hands began to move her hips in a slow, sweet rotation against him. He groaned harshly.

She shivered with the pleasure. Her body rippled with delicious, dangerous sensations.

“Mack?” she whispered, lifting involuntarily toward him in a sensuous little rhythm.

His hands slid to her hips, her waist and blatantly over the thin fabric that covered her breasts in the lacy little long-line bra she wore under the dress. As she met his searching gaze, his hands went inside the deep V neckline and down over the silky skin of her breasts. She caught her breath at the bold caress.

“This,” he said softly, “is a very bad idea.”

“Of course it is,” she agreed unsteadily. Her body was showing a will of its own, lifting and shifting to tease his lean hands closer to the hard tips that wanted so desperately to be caressed.

“Don’t,” he murmured quietly.

“Mack?”

His forehead moved softly against hers as he tried to catch his breath. “If I touch you the way you want me to, I won’t be able to stop. There are four people right inside the house, and three of them would pass out if they saw us like this.”

“Do you really think they would?” she asked in a breathless tone.

His thumbs edged down toward the tiny hardnesses inside the long-line and she whimpered.

“Do you want me to touch them?” he whispered at her lips.

“Yes!” she choked.

“It won’t be enough,” he murmured.

“It will. It will!”

“Not nearly enough,” he continued. His mouth touched her eyelids and closed them while his thumbs worked their way lazily inside the lacy cups. “You have the prettiest little breasts, Natalie,” he whispered as he traced the soft skin tenderly. “I’d give almost anything right now to put my mouth over them and suckle you.”

She cried out, shocked at the delicious images the words produced in her mind.

“I ache,” he breathed into her lips, even as his thumbs finally, finally, found her and pressed hard against the little peaks.

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